EPL Talk » Mark Hughes

Talk Of Manchester City Making A Top Five Is Premature

Paul Bestall — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:55:02 +0000

If I was an Arsenal fan, I’d be fed up already listening to people saying that Manchester City were obviously going to usurp them as one of the “Big Four” sides. It’s amazing what spending money does to peoples judgement when it comes to football and Manchester City have certainly caught more than their fair share of attention over the summer. To all intents and purposes, Manchester City will easily outstrip Arsenal on the pitch and leapfrog them in the Premiership.

So since last summer City have spent over £160 million pounds, but have they really bought the required players to turn them into a major force in the Premiership. In my honest opinion, no they haven’t. It’s easy to simply look at the figures they’ve spent and it all becomes an addiction to money rather than talent. For some, Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson have suddenly lost the managerial skills they’ve earned over one summer due to players going to Manchester City.

How has Ferguson lost his abilities by not signing Carlos Tevez? Whilst the vocal United fans tried to convince Ferguson to sign him up, Ferguson would not be budged. He was quite right to question how a striker who only scored 5 goals in the Premiership was worth £25 million. He consistently failed to deliver in big games time and again, yet because he ran around like a dog chasing a rabbit, he was “world class”. It is such an over rated term, that is consistently trotted out all the time as to make it almost redundant. Would you honestly say he’s a better striker than Wayne Rooney? Really? Even the most blinkered City fan can surely see the stupidity of that comparison.

Not one of Manchester City’s new signings is World Class, that’s a fact. Not one of them. Honestly, seriously, none of them. With the exception of Gareth Barry, Shay Given and Wayne Bridge, there isn’t one player who would be at Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea. Adebayor, Toure and Tevez have all been let go because they aren’t good enough for a top 4 side. City had clean run at every one of the targets they’ve signed because the clubs that owned the players were happy to see them leave, Barry and Given apart.

Craig Bellamy, over rated, over paid and has never, ever delivered consistently. A temper that causes more problems than he’s worth, I witnessed one of his strops at Norwich. Refused a decision by the referee, little Craig stomped his feet and jumped up and down on the spot for almost a minute. Pathetic. I wonder how long it will be before he starts texting his team mates spiteful messages?

Roque Santa Cruz, so good that when he left Bayern Munich, he joined Blackburn, no offence Rovers fans. If every major club in Europe wasn’t interested, how has he become such a brilliant striker after one good season and then moping around for a year hoping for a move. In 8 years at Bayern, he scored 38 goals playing for one of the biggest sides in Europe and one that consistently challenged for trophies at home and in Europe. That’s a dreadful record for someone allegedly so good.

Robinho joined Manchester City, then forgot who he’d signed for. Chelsea to be fair, wouldn’t pay over £27.5 million for him and by Christmas, they were probably glad they hadn’t. Another one touted as “world class”, laughably so if you’ve watched him regularly at Real Madrid. A good player, almost really good, but wildly inconsistent, prone to having hissy fits and a strike rate that doesn’t match the amount of chances he gets.

As for the two signings from Arsenal, Toure and Adebayor, Wenger must be laughing all the way the bank with his £40 million transfer kitty. He has, thanks to Manchester City, made a fortune from Arsenal’s two biggest troublemakers who were simply not at the races last season. If anything, Arsenal are stronger without spending a penny. The issues that those two caused in the dressing room and on the training ground had caused fractures through out Wengers squad in the last two seasons. Arsenal are better without those two at the Emirates, no question.

Adebayor famously attacked a team mate during a match because he didn’t pass to him, Toure got his gang to ignore William Gallas because he couldn’t be captain. Once again, childish, immature and bringing tons of baggage with them.Good riddance, I don’t know one Arsenal fan who is sad to see them leave. Not one. That tells you everything you need to know about those two.

This rag tag bunch of egotistical, money driven mercenaries are now all nicely tied up on 4 and 5 year contracts, earning more money than they ever believed they possibly could. Do you really think they’ve come to win trophies or count their cash? All this talk of “ being excited by the project” makes me laugh, it’s jibberish. It’s all about the money, nothing more, nothing less. Now somehow this team will be bonded and formed into one the best teams in England within weeks? It’s crazy to expect such results so soon.

How long before the cracks appear at Eastlands and the dressing room becomes a pit of ego clashes and cliques. If they’re not in the top 7 come Christmas, the pressure will be really on Mark Hughes. Rome was not built in a day and Manchester City could end up being more like Sodom and Gomorrah than the Eternal City next season. They will have all to do to keep up with Everton, Tottenham, Villa and Fulham, never mind crack the top 4 and worry Arsenal.

What Will Arsenal Do With the £39m from Manchester City?

tyduffy — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:03:47 +0000

Manchester City are spending their way into the Premier League top four. Paradoxically, the club most amenable to their ambition is Arsenal, whom they wish to supplant. The Gunners sold City striker Emmanuel Adebayor for £25m. Less than two weeks later, they are prepared to sell them defender Kolo Toure for another £14m, as the 28-year-old Ivorian has been turned by the £100,000 per week wage offer.

If Toure’s deal goes through, Arsenal will receive £39m from Manchester City. If Fiorentina buy Emmanuel Eboue for the rumored £8.5m that would be £47.5m in sales. Their only buy thus far has been £10m defender Thomas Vermaelen from Ajax. Arsenal would, theoretically, make a £37.5m profit over the summer, enough to buy one spectacular player or two borderline great ones. Despite the influx in cash, however, Arsene Wenger has already issued his tired refrain about being satisfied with the squad and not needing to spend.

The situation is curious. It indicates serious financial trouble, or serious delusion.

Arsenal have their zealots, pointing out that Arsenal already have their summer signings, Eduardo and Tomas Rosicky returning from injury. They also have the young players stepping forward. This justification sounds familiar, because it was the same exact justification given last summer, when Hleb, Flamini and Gilberto left. It also resonates with excuses made in the two trophy-less seasons previously.

Injuries are another common claim. Arsenal had serious ones last year, most crucially Cesc Fabregas’ knee. Had players not been injured, the season could have gone differently. True, but what squad has no injuries? Certainly not Arsenal in the past few seasons. Clubs that win have squads that withstand injuries.

Chelsea have stayed pat. Manchester United lost Cristiano Ronaldo. Liverpool may lose Alonso, Mascherano or both. Arsenal, with wise investment, could propel themselves to title contention next season. Instead, they jettison more players from an already perilously thin squad, content to be relevant rather than dominant, proud to be a few points off the pace.

Arsenal are receiving £39m from Manchester City, but, if the club does not reinvest at least some of the money, they could lose nearly that much by not qualifying for the Champions League.

Is Mark Hughes Building a Barcelona Clone at Eastlands?

Dave Warner — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:56:12 +0000

Say what you will about the obscene amount of money being spent by Manchester City this summer, but you have to admit that there’s a certain perverse pleasure in watching someone build a real-life club lineup in much the same way that most regular joes would create their starting XI in a video game.

Okay, let’s take West Brom out and put Sealand FC into the Premier League. I’ll build a giant floating stadium in the North Sea for them. Awesome. Let’s drop Kaká in the middle here, and David Villa up front with Jozy Altidore… ooh, gotta bump his numbers up a bit… Cool. Hey, let’s make a Kevin Garnett character and put him in goal. He seems like he could have been good at that…

Man City manager Mark Hughes hasn’t gone quite that crazy, of course, but at first glance, he appears to be making the same mistake most novice video gamers might make when building a team: loading up on strikers. At some point, a gamer realizes that Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi, Kun Aguero and an injury-free Michael Owen — who seems to exist only in computers and preseasons — can’t all play together at once. Someone has to win the ball and control it in the midfield.

Of course, Hughes hasn’t forgotten this. That’s why he spent £17M on Nigel de Jong in January and another £12M on Gareth Barry this summer. Still, Manchester City has thrown a whopping £129M at forwards since being taken over by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan last August, and the projected front line of Robinho, Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tevez alone cost more than £82M.

Throw Stephen Ireland in with Barry, de Jong and that forward trio, however, and Hughes’ plan begins to come into focus. Man City is attempting to emulate FC Barcelona.

And why not? Barcelona used their 4-1-2-3 formation to shatter opponents and win a convincing triple last year, so it’s practically destined to become imitated widely. It’s entirely possible that Sheikh Mansour, like the rest of us, watched Barca break down Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League Final and asked Hughes to build a side exactly like that. He’s also put Hughes in the unique position to do that with just about any players he wants.

The parallels are obvious. Adebayor is the big striker in the middle, a la Samuel Eto’o, while Robinho and Tevez are set wide like Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi. Barry and Ireland are there to control the midfield like Xavi and Iniesta and feed the forwards, while de Jong sits back and provides cover like Yaya Toure. Sort out the central defense, and Sparky could find himself managing a contender.

Plenty of questions remain, though. For starters, can Hughes rotate his strikers enough to keep everyone happy? Craig Bellamy, Roque Santa Cruz, Benjani, Valeri Bojinov, Felipe Caicedo and Ched Evans are all fighting for spots, too, and some of them won’t be satisfied playing just cup ties. Does Elano see any playing time in this midfield, which would suit his skills well, or is safe to assume he’ll be gone come August? And what happens to pure wingers like Shaun Wright-Phillips and Martin Petrov? Do they become square pegs in this triangular front six?

Ah, but that’s the fun thing about building a video game roster. When you’ve got the right players, you can experiment with just about any formation you want. Perhaps Hughes can revert back to the familiar 4-4-2 when the situation calls for it. It would be far more interesting, though, to see if that Barca-style 4-1-2-3 could succeed at Eastlands over a full season. In fact, I might just recreate that lineup myself in Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 this weekend and see how well it works.

Now Mark Hughes Knows Exactly What’s Required

Paul Bestall — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:38:46 +0000

When Mark Hughes agreed to replace Sven Goran Eriksson last summer, no doubt he knew things would be interesting at Manchester City, it very rarely isn’t in the sky blue half of Manchester, but I doubt he’d have expected anything like the events that ultimately played out. What with the takeover and the crazy final day of the summer transfer window, with City making 10 bids of over £15 million for players, it was probably the maddest 24 hours the City faithful could remember in years.

After that, he’s coped remarkably well with the media speculation, both about transfer targets and his own future at the club, showing a calm and assured exterior throughout the season. Of course there have been hiccups along the way, the F.A. Cup defeat, losing 3-0 at home to Forest probably the lowest point along with the embarrassment of being kicked out of the League Cup at Brighton on penalties. Yet, this is a team still trying to find its feet and he has added some excellent signings along the way.

Shay Given is one of the best goalkeepers in Europe, as hard as that signing was on the promising Joe Hart, Wayne Bridge a consistent and dependable left back. Vincent Kompany has long been touted as one of Europe’s most promising players as is Nigel De Jong and Stephen Ireland has been magnificent all season. Of course, question marks were raised over the signing of Craig Bellamy, but if anyone can get him playing to his full potential, it’s Hughes, their relationship built during his time as Wales and Blackburn manager.

Now the owner has laid down the aim for next season, a top 6 finish, which for a manager who took Blackburn to the UEFA Cup twice and had 3 top 10 finishes in a row, should be a piece of cake with the resources at his disposal. Mubarak’s statement released on Tuesday was a vindication for Hughes and the work in progress that Manchester City should be classed as. It seemed a reasoned and balanced indication of what the owner wants for Manchester City, regardless of the rubbish and speculation that you can read every day about them, such as this nonsense!

City have had some dreadful press this year, with so many lazy journalists writing rubbish about them because it fills space in empty papers. Here in the UK, we have a couple of papers who are renowned for being so far of the mark with transfer stories as to be laughable. Suffice to say, if you see a transfer story printed in either the Daily Express or the Daily Star, chances are it’ll never happen. Last season, they had a success rate of 8% for transfer stories, the lowest in England by some distance.

That’s not to say they’ve not been their own worst enemy at times, Chief Executive Gary Cook has said some eyebrow raising things during his time at Eastlands, the comments about Richard Dunne were especially unkind, “China and India are gagging for football content to watch and we’re going to tell them that City is their content. We need a superstar to get through that door. Richard Dunne doesn’t roll off the tongue in Beijing. Ronaldinho brings access to major sponsors and financial reward.”

Now that may be true but players like Richard Dunne win you titles by allowing the superstars to play and thankfully Cook has calmed his comments down over the last couple of months after the rather choice words used toward Kaka and A.C. Milan. He needs to deliver the players to move City up a level from where they’ve been the last couple of years. A consistent goal scorer is key, as is a fit and skilful left sided midfielder to add to four or five signings to strengthen the squad. Hughes will be looking to shift some dead wood out too as well as tie Stephen Ireland down to a new long term contract.

Hughes now knows his goals, no doubt his list of transfer targets already is on Gary Cooks desk and as soon as the season finishes on Sunday, City will begin the search to add some more quality to the potential they already have on their books. With Tottenham, Everton and Aston Villa all showing flashes this season, we could finally get a season to remember in 2009-2010 and not just the same 4 clubs sharing out the trophies once again.

Can Manchester City Win The UEFA CUP?

Paul Bestall — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:13:00 +0000

Could Manchester City finally put their 33 year major trophy drought to bed this season by winning the UEFA Cup this season? Why not, what with Ajax crashing out last night at the hands of Marseille and Zenit St Petersburg and CSKA Moscow losing today, the competition for the trophy is getting into the nitty gritty stage and it seems to be opening up for City. Mark Hughes side has been wildly inconsistent, putting 6 past Portsmouth and 5 past Hull City, but dumped out of the League Cup by Brighton on penalties and were humiliated at home 3-0 by Nottingham Forest in the F.A. Cup but they’ve been impressive in the UEFA Cup both at home and abroad this season. With only one away win in the league, it’s been a strange season for the City faithful.

Tonight they travel to Northern Jutland to face Aalborg with a 2-0 lead and a chance to move into the Quarter Finals for a real crack at the trophy. Yet, Manchester City have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory which is unparalled in English Football that has seen their fans develop a very healthy ability to laugh at themselves. Surely this could be their season to finally put a proper smile on faces of the City faithful? It’s certainly a weaker UEFA Cup than it could have been with AC Milan, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Fiorentina, Bordeaux and Valencia all being removed from the competition before we even reached the last 16.I don’t think Mark Hughes will be upset to see any of those sides out at all. Their first 11 is certainly as good as some of the remaining teams in the competition, maybe one of the best, so it’s not impossible to imagine City lifting the trophy in Turkey on May 20th.

City though have perhaps received a little too much stick this season for me. Sure they’ve become the richest club in the world but it’s still a transitional season for them. Thankfully for us, Chief Executive Gary Cook seems to have kept a very low profile after his rather childish comments about AC Milan and Kaka in January, which is a blessing for us all. His rather acidic nature and bombastic attitude doesn’t sit well people and attracts as much criticism as it deserves, but Hughes has also had a fair amount of flak, unfairly I feel. It’s a learning curve for everyone at Manchester City, ever since the Robinho signing, they’ve suddenly moved onto a different level but they’ve got their best chance of some serious silverware for a long time in the UEFA Cup.

If they can negotiate tonight’s away leg, which knowing City, is no forgone conclusion, then the key teams to avoid are Werder Bremen and whoever wins in the tie of the round, Galatasaray v SV Hamburg. Martin Jol’s team have a lot to do and need to score in Turkey tonight to have any chance to get through but if they do, then they’ll become the favourite for the cup. If City can avoid those teams, then reaching the final becomes a realistic proposition for Mark Hughes. I hope they do get there, he’s dealt with rumour and counter rumour all season with supreme patience, fending questions about his future, transfers, ongoing issues with certain big name players and the change in expectations once Manchester City were ought by the Abu Dhabi United Group, with courtesy.He deserves a bit of luck after everything that’s been thrown at him throughout the season.

I wish them all the best in Europe and hope we get a Hamburg and Manchester City final for the last ever UEFA Cup final before we welcome the Europa League next season.